Rescheduled flight hustle

We booked a flight with Qatar Airways from Amsterdam to Capetown with a layover of four hours in Doha. Nice price, very ok airline, not too much time in between. We are happy.

Then suddenly we got a disturbing e-mail from the airline: your flight has changed. This is never good news.

Our first flight to Doha has been pushed back for a couple of hours for some vague reason, so now we have a layover of minus 3 hours. Perhaps we are missing something here in terms of local time?

We call Qatar Airways, a friendly gentleman with a Middle Eastern accent explains our options but we cannot understand a word he’s saying. Finally we can make something out of his blabla… we have two options, we can move our second flight, which goes from Doha to Cape Town, to the next day. That means that we have 21 hours transfer time in Doha and will be one day shorter in Cape Town.

Or we can push both flights forward one day, to 31 March. We then have a transfer of three hours and arrive a day earlier in Cape Town. Easy decision actually… We leave a day earlier so that we can explore Capetown for a day longer. Whoah, exciting! Everything is arranged and within no time we receive a confirmation email.

As soon as our high has dropped a bit, we realize that this will also bring some

Our last two nights in Arnhem we sleep in a hotel, but that is now one night… and of course we have chosen the lowest price when booking this hotel, without cancellation option. Fok.

We call the hotel, but for this we have to be at the booking site. So, we call them. They too, cannot change the reservation. Sigh. Breathe. We just paid one night for nothing… in a not too cheap hotel too! I weep a bit inside.

Ok, what more? This also means that we arrive in Cape Town a day earlier. That in itself is not a problem, (no man, super cool!) but our booked hostel is fully booked. Almost everything in Capetown is full that night. Luckily we find a nice hostel close the other one we’ve booked. I book via a discount link from the booking site. The night is not cancelable but well, let’s hope we don’t need to change it anymore.

As soon as I receive the confirmation in the mail, I see that something has gone wrong with the discount. No discount. I really have to pay more attention. Bugger!

Again a phonecall with the booking site does not solve much. They can ask the hostel if I can cancel the booking free of charge so that I can book again via the discount link. Pff the things you have to do for € 15… It cannot get worse so I’ll patiently await the verdict.

We have paid for an unused hotelnight in Arnhem and we have to pay an extra night in Cape Town, which also turns out to be more expensive than planned. I’m not completely over it yet, but jeez, we’re going on our worldtrip a day earlier…

15 more days!

19/3 A few days later we received a message from Qatar Airways that we will not receive compensation for this inconvenience. Ridiculously, of course.

However, we are allowed to pull our stay at the hotel in Arnhem forward one day so we can still use the lost night. And last but not least, we can cancel our booking in Capetown and book again with the €15 discount link!

All in all, the damage is so bad 🙂